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Working At Home? How to Avoid Piling on the Pounds!
By Janice Elizabeth Small
Working at home can threaten your
waistline. Learn the 9 key strategies that will help you avoid
gaining weight while you make a success of your business.
It's so tempting isn't it? Work is not going well. Or you have a
deadline looming. Or you've got to update your accounts. Much easier
to make endless trips to the fridge to fill up on snacks!
But when you start working at home, it can be alarming how quickly
the pounds creep up, just because food is so available. And you
bitterly regret all those snacks next time you get on the scales or
try to do up something you haven't worn for a while.
Now, a normal office is not always the easiest place to control
overeating either - everyone brings cakes and candy to share for the
most minor celebration, and you have more opportunity for social
type eating and drinking at lunch and after work. But a full fridge
is a bigger threat - after all no one is watching you like they
would be if you had three pieces of the cake at work!
Keeping out of the kitchen altogether would be one solution. You
could pack your lunch and healthy snacks before you start the day,
have a supply of cool drinks and set up tea and coffee making
facilities in your home office - pretend you don't have a kitchen.
But most of us won't do that. We like being at home because we have
access to all the facilities that home offers. Sometimes it's great
to be able to start dinner early or do a couple of chores while we
take a breather from our other tasks.
But there are a few things you CAN do without making the kitchen and
the fridge a "no-go" area.
* Make your lunch before you begin work - or at least know exactly
what you are going to have. This way you are less likely to dive for
the nearest fattening snack because you suddenly noticed you worked
way past the point when you should have eaten and you are ravenous.
* Also prepare some healthy snacks so that you can grab them from
the fridge and go. Sticks of carrot, cucumber, celery and the like
make great nibbles when you haven't time to stop for a full meal.
Put a tablespoonful of low-calorie dip into a small bowl if you
don't like them just as they are.
* If you know you are going to be grazing all day - plan for 5 or 6
mini-meals throughout the day, rather than grazing AND eating a
whole lunch. While this might be impractical in an office, at home
you can do exactly as you like - make the most of it. A typical day
might be
A bowl of fruit for breakfast.
A couple of crackers with sugar-free peanut butter half way through
the morning.
Vegetable soup or salad for lunch.
A yogurt with chopped up apple in the afternoon.
10 or so pretzel sticks to keep you going until dinner.
* If you can, try and take a break away from your work area while
you eat so that you have time to focus on the food. It's too easy to
wolf down a whole snack or meal and not even notice you've eaten it.
If you don't have that focus it's harder to feel satisfied by the
food you've had and you're more likely to want more straight away
and overeat as a result. And of course you avoid those problems with
keyboards getting sticky and work getting spoiled with bits of food.
* If you're working at home, you may find you have to keep some
foods out of the house because they are just too dangerous to have
around all day. My downfall is chocolate. So, if I buy chocolate
biscuits for my kids I choose the kind that I don' t like that much
and they do. But you may have to decide not to buy chocolate and
junk snack foods at all if you really can't resist. It will do
everyone else good too. And you can only eat what is there.
* As for exercise, at least make sure you move around throughout the
day if your job is desk based. It's a huge bonus that no one can see
you pacing around when you are on the phone, or doing exercises to
avoid getting too tense such as rolling your neck, circling your
shoulders or arms or doing leg extensions. If you make it a habit to
move around just a couple of minutes every half an hour - the kind
of break you need to be taking anyway - you will have taken over 30
minutes exercise in an 8-hour day! I find that when things get on
top of me and I haven't had time for an early-morning aerobics
session, 10 minutes vigorous housework once an hour works for me. I
get some exercise, go back to my huge work task list feeling ready
to tackle it AND I don't worry that my home is falling apart while I
stay attached to my computer.
* Look like you mean business. I know it's great to be able to slob
around all day in sweat pants and a t-shirt but it will do your
self-image no good and you won't feel that waistband expanding half
so much as you do when you wear normal smart casual clothes. Wear
something comfortable but smart. You have to show yourself that it's
worth looking good just for you so you get the message when you eat
too.
* Keep regular hours. Although there may be a crisis or two where
you absolutely have to work through the night and fortify yourself
with pizza or ice-cream, you can't make this a regular habit for the
sake of your weight, your health or your sanity.
* By the same token, get plenty of rest. There have been studies
showing that a lack of sleep causes us to eat more during the
following day.
Working at home IS fantastic. You are in control of your own time
and your own choices much more than you ever were working for
someone else. Design your working life to suit YOU and how you want
to live. Want to be healthy and slim? Then DESIGN your day to meet
your goals. You are the one who calls the shots now.
Janice Elizabeth is a weight loss coach and author of "The Diet
Exit Plan". Her web site is:
http://www.SimplySlimming.com |
